This Is The Most Boring Blog Ever ~ P90X Blog 4

There was a time when this sight would cause heart palpatations. Also,
I'm not sure how to spell that.

The Wife and I have a weekly date night. That's how you know we don't have children. It's usually a weeknight, when we haven't seen each other for a few days. I hop the subway and meet her at Government Center and we get dinner in the North End or at an Irish pub. In a few weeks, we'll stroll through Quincy Market and look at the Christmas decorations.

Last week's date night brought me to Lechmere, the end of the dreaded Green Line on the subway. It's the closest stop to TW's work, so we had a tentative plan to explore the Galleria and perhaps find some dinner, possibly at The Cheesecake Factory.

TW is a newly minted physician assistant and she needed to stay a little late to catch up on her paperwork for the patients she saw in her family practice clinic. That's cool. I'll hang out in the mall.

First, I haven't "hung out" in a mall since high school, and even then it was a rare occasion. It took me all of three minutes to walk from end to end, completely uninterested in any of the shopping opportunities available to me.

Then a guy walked by in a Geek Squad shirt.

Oh yeah. Best Buy. Christmas is coming up and my list is Zero long. I need some ideas. Naturally, I went to check out Best Buy. In my teens and early 20s, Best Buy was a wonderland. There was always a gadget to salivate over. A stereo to check out. Computers to inspect. Games to test. And the music selection was incredible. It was geek heaven.

Best Buy hasn't changed all that much, but I have.

I walked through every aisle in the computer section. It was an exercise in futility. I don't play games or do anything requiring upscale graphics processors. My computers are used to write stories, write blogs, and to stealthily haunt your Facebook profile. From a computing power standpoint, I could use a 2005 Epson. I'm pretty sure Epson only make/made printers. That's what I know about technology anymore.

Perhaps some iPods, iPhone gadgets and assorted Apple stuff? Negative. I don't have an iPhone, try not to use the iPad and have no need for a new computer.

Need is the key word here. But we'll get back to that.

Video games. Oh, Best Buy video games section. You had me at Doom, back in 1994. Your PlayStation displays sold me on the PS2 back in the early 2000s and the Nintendo 64 during my college years.

There's tons of neat stuff in the games aisle. There were 10 different headsets for you to hook into your gaming system so you can give voice commands to the game (!) or talk smack with 13-year-olds while playing shoot-em-ups on the Internet. Thing is, I don't play those games. I don't really like much of anything, come to think of it.

Don't misunderstand, I like to think I have plenty of hobbies, if I could access them. I like to golf but I couldn't tell you where the nearest course is, how much it costs to golf, or whether there's a driving range. And it's probably 20-30 minutes to get there, which seems like a big hassle. In Utah, skiing was the main winter hobby. I had a season ski pass for six straight years. In summer, there was mountain hiking. Neither hiking nor skiing is really an option right now because of where I live.

Also, I'm incredibly boring. This is something of a revelation because, theoretically, I like to try new things and get my adrenaline going. I just don't see how to do that while living in the city. At least, without running naked down the street, which could be exciting in a different way.

And still, Christmas is bearing down in its unrelenting way. The Target Christmas ads are on. I should have presented my Christmas list a month ago, but I can't because I don't have one. There is one newfound hobby that makes me slightly less of a bore. Brewing beer is kind of awesome. On a recent visit to Maine, Nacho Man and I brewed a bourbon porter. And it will be spectacular because it always is. I have a dozen different kinds and brands of beer in my fridge right now and another dozen or so in the basement. My cousin in Mississippi mailed me six bottles from Mississippi's only microbrewer, Lazy Magnolia (that he is under age and that it's illegal to mail beer is of no consequence).

Beer excites me. I drink beer about twice a week, so please don't get concerned. And I would, if necessary, ask for beer-related items for Christmas. A "rocket burner" or "turkey burner" to heat up huge vats of water; a 15-gallon pot to boil water in; all the brewing widgets; a kegerator with room for two 5-gallon kegs. Yes, mentally, I could spend $1,500 on brewing-related items.

But they don't sell any of that at Best Buy. You don't ask for beer stuff for Christmas. And I'm just cheap. Remember that use of the word "need" ^ up there? I don't really need anything. I needed lemons to make a potato-cabbage-leek soup this morning. I need new shoes. I don't need $1,500 of brewing supplies. Therefore, I won't get it.

Maybe that's my newfound middle-aged-ness speaking. I'm middle-aged and, therefore, boring. It's strange to feel boring and be kind of OK with being boring, aside from asking the occasional, "What the hell has happened to me?"

Tonight, however, is again Date Night, which is kind of awesome. I haven't really seen TW since Sunday. I awoke to find an email from her this morning informing me that she dropped her iPhone in ... uh ... some water. But it was a cute email. We still like each other and are excited to see each other. If that's getting older, I guess I'm OK with that. Too bad for Best Buy. They could use the business.